Thursday, December 10, 2015

Salt Dough Ornaments

Yesterday afternoon, Nolan and I set out to create some colorful salt dough ornaments for our Christmas tree! The recipe for the dough is super simple, and I think they turned out really cute! If you've got space on your tree and a preschooler to entertain, give this a whirl!

Today is Astleigh and my last Every Girl Link-Up! I can't believe we're here already. If you have a DIY Ornament post to share, we can't wait to read about it!

What You Need for Salt Dough

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup warm water

1 T oil

cookie cutters of various shapes

paint (acrylic, watercolor)

a straw to punch the holes

string or ribbon to hang them

Directions:

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl. Knead until it resembles a smooth dough. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it's about 1/4 inch thick.

Use cookie cutters to create your desired shapes. Poke the tops of the ornaments with a straw to make holes for hanging.

Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for two hours, flipping them over halfway through.

When they have cooled, begin painting!

I've read that you can spray them with poly to make them last longer.

With half of the dough, I decided to make the boys' handprints. They ended up being larger and heavier than I'd imagined, so I'm not sure they will hang on our Christmas tree. I'll have to find a new spot for them because they are so sweet! I used little rubber stamps to emboss their initials onto the dough. I left them in the oven for around 3 hours because they were thicker than the little ornaments.

Happy to be painting!

Most of Nolan's ornaments were solid colors, so I love that he followed my lead, tried something new, and gave the candy cane some white stripes :)

His sweet and simple gingerbread man, snowman, and stocking.

I have a pie cookie cutter (it came in a pack of two with a pumpkin). I've never used it, and I really didn't imagine that I would ever have a reason to. I painted it purple for blackberry pie, and it turned out to be my favorite one. :)

If you have a DIY Ornament post to share, link up with us below! See you back here tomorrow for Friday Favorites.

4 comments:

This is SO cute. I've heard of salt dough ornaments but didn't think they would be that easy. Now, I'm debating if I can manage a project like that with my pre-k Sunday School class. Hmmm...Thanks for sharing!